Under the Spire; 2012

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Music from this release

Abstract music usually involves an element of chance. Even the most precise noise or drone contains moments in which the creator reacts to the creation rather than controlling it. That factor of randomness makes it tough to improve and refine a particular approach, but in the past few years, that's exactly what Mike Shiflet has done. From 2010's Llanos to 2011's Sufferers and Merciless, Shiflet has found new possibilities in his sound by diving deeper into it. In my review of Merciless, I almost called that album his peak, and I'm glad I held out: The Choir, the Army is undoubtedly his best release to date.

Exactly why it's the best is hard to summarize, since there's so much happening in the album's nine rich, ever unfolding tracks. But one standout reason is the way Shiflet's array of tones and techniques-- ambiance, dissonance, melody, repetition-- feel like integral parts of a natural whole. This isn't simply a matter of track sequencing or transitions. It's also the overwhelming sense that every song is guided by a single hand, and every sound plays an equal role. So a blast of static in one piece can feel uncannily similar to a distant bass in another. The resulting cohesion makes The Choir, the Army a kind of wordless story, with each track more like a chapter in a book or a scene in a movie than a song in a collection.

This narrative line is clear from the start. Just compare the first two tracks, the sparse, rattling "1917" and the dense, grand "Zahlentheorie". On the surface, in the sounds they use and the spaces they fill, the tracks are practically opposites. But the way Shiflet builds them, widening their sonic scope as if he's panning and zooming a camera, they end up feeling like twins. This connective tissue gives him the freedom to trace a wide, diverse path, from the construction-site rattle of "Attrition" to the glitchy atmospherics of "False Flats" to the trebly whirr of "Omicron Serenade", and without ever losing his sense of direction.

It also gives The Choir, the Army an emotional resonance that's not easy to coax from music this abstract. It's there in the shifting grooves of "Asymptotes", which morphs random clanging into a kind of evocative noise choir. The warped waves of "Passenchendale" are poignantly blurry, echoing the hazy distortion of memory. And there's a hint of Stars of the Lid's stoic longing in the slow-but-tense drift of "Inching". Throughout, Shiflet lets his sounds build and arc, never forcing them into shapes or interrupting their flow to grab your attention. In other words, they often feel more like life than art.

Yet the song that I find myself coming back to most is the one with the most obvious artifice. Closer "Yonder" offers the most layers of any track, and for the first time you can see the skeleton beneath Shiflet's sonic skin. It's made of tape hiss, rolling static, violin-like creak, and an achingly off-key guitar that adds both creepy aura and nostalgic sadness. But Shiflet's consistent vision gives "Yonder"'s transparency as much impact as anything on The Choir, the Army. In a way, it represents the album perfectly: varied sounds that achieve a unified goal, and make you itch to hear them again.